Left out at work?

I’d ignore it. Either you were excluded by the Pot Luck Overlord deliberately, more likely it was a simple mistake. Either way I take it a stroke of good luck you didn’t have to faff about with devilled eggs. Who wants food poising anyway 🤢

It hasn't happened yet? Then make or buy something to bring in. IF this was deliberate, the best revenge will be turning up and joining in as if nothing happened to disrupt that! If it happened by accident, all good too.

If this person is disrupting the rest of the team's work, go and see your manager as a group so they know it's a shared feeling and ask them to deal with it. You'll get better results that way.

Oh!
Interesting.

I've not heard it called that in ANY of the Churches I've been to where we've had bring and share meals. You'd think - if that were the case - then church goers might use the term, if anyone does

It’s called a fuddle in Derbyshire - it’s funny for different areas have different names.

I would have brought something really extravagant to annoy the organiser (better version of whatever she was bringing), who is being extremely petty! Probably not the best response though. Could you just ask in front of colleagues why you weren’t included to call out her pettiness?

Try to rise above it.

its biblical rather than geographical, Jacob sent his sons out to bring food back during a 7 year famine.

So a “bring and share” (we have one today!) you’re making a massive assumption.

I didn’t know about our bring and share until last week…. I’ve been off for an operation……. No, I don’t think anyone has purposely left you out. Just grab a bag of crisps and a bottle of pop on your way to work. 🤷‍♀️

If it's a shared mailbox she isn't reading your emails. She's reading emails that comes to the shared inbox.

Do you know how it was communicated? Your other work colleague seemed to be happy to invite you.

Are you sure it's not an oversight?

And if it was intentional by your own admission this woman isn't nice. It's sounds true to form
For her.

It's never nice to feel excluded but go along and stick to the people you like.

So you over hear people talking about it, you then ask the organiser if everyone is invited, she tells you everyone is invited…. Then what? She walks away with no further conversation?

But did they not ask if you got the invite or if anyone mentioned it to you?

Did you ask the organiser if everyone was invited?

I agree with @MaybeALittle 's posts.

However, if this shared mailbox is causing issues amongst your team, (and it isn't very clear how it is supposed to work to me) then surely the sensible thing to do would be to go to the Manager and say "the system as it is, isn't working, can we do x / y / z instead?" rather than having a go at a colleague ?

It’s rubbish to be left out of things OP- I’m sorry you were forgotten about this time. But if it is a one off it could just be an honest mistake. If I were you I would monitor the situation as pp have suggested - see if you are invited to future events. If you are left out of future events then it would be the time to raise with your line manager and ask why this is happening and tell them how it makes you feel.

It doesn’t sound like the OP is looking for advice on managing a shared mailbox, rather that the annoying person opens emails that are not hers to deal with and marks them complete. If this is happening frequently it’s reasonable to assume it’s deliberate or that she’s incompetent. Either way it’s appropriate to escalate to management as it’s detrimental to the team and workflow.

Can you not colour code the emails in the shared mailbox. That's what we do, each colleague has a category colour and the person working on the email colours it so we know it's being dealt with

So what’s the issue, exactly? From what you say, it hasn’t happened yet, and now you know about it, so either bring something on the day, or don’t bring something and eat what other people bring. If someone queries you not bringing a dish, say ‘No one told me!’

I think I if I had a lot of stress going on at home, I’d probably be deeply relieved not to have to cook a dish to take to work on top of it all!

You shouldn't have interfered on behalf of your colleague.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, OP. You are paranoid. Maybe the notice about the sharing meal was in an email you didn’t see because your manager had marked it as ‘read’. Isn’t that just as possible, given the issues you describe? And I absolutely fail to see why you regard not being told about the Jacob’s Join as a ‘punishment’ — surely it means you’re relieved of the task of making a dish and carting it to work? Or, now that you know about it, you can bring something anyway?

It sounds like a minor issue compared to the situation with the incompetently-managed mailbox anyway.

My parents use the term Jacob's Join.

It sounds more likely a bit disorganised and an accident you didn't know. Maybe it was announced casually when a lot of people were around and people told to tell others, and just happened op fell between the cracks.
That sounds far more likely than a deliberate leaving out.